Anyone that's been online since the days of dial-up will remember that you could find CDs for AOL and NetZero just about everywhere. It's been many years since the name NetZero has been in play, but the service is back again as a subsidiary of United Online offering users 4G mobile broadband.

The new services have been announced with no contract and fast 4G speeds using either a NetZero 4G HotSpot or a 4G USB stick. The service is available in 80 different cities around the country including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Miami. Data plans on the service start at $9.95 per month and can be canceled at any time. Speeds are up to 10 Mbps download and up to 1.5 Mbps upload.

"NetZero is bridging the digital divide by letting consumers purchase a secure, quality, mobile broadband service at very affordable prices with plans designed to meet the consumers' data needs," said Mark R. Goldston, chairman, president and CEO of United Online. "Our service gives customers the freedom to take the Internet anywhere in our coverage area, without being tied to public Wi-Fi service or having to purchase higher-cost, sometimes multi-year plans offered by other mobile broadband providers. With NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband, there are no contracts or commitments, and our customers can even try our service for up to one year for free."

The hotspot supports up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices with a 150-foot range and the USB modem supports a single device using a USB port. The hotspot will sell for $99.95 with 4G stick selling for $49.95. All plans can access two different speed settings with one called LightSpeed with 1 Mbps downloads with 10 Mbps downloads on the WarpSpeed plan. The idea is to allow the user to save data with slower speeds when needed.

NetZero offers five different data plans with different data allotments per month. Just for buying the hotspot or the USB modem, you get a scant 200 MB of data each month for free. It's uncommon to get any data free, so that's an interesting offer for people who only rarely used data on the go. The basic plan offers 500 MB of data monthly for $9.95. For $19.95 per month, the user gets 1 GB of data, 2 GB of monthly data will cost $34.95 per month, and platinum package with 4 GB of monthly data is $49.95.

Any unused data expires at the end of each monthly billing cycle and users can move between the plans if desired. The 200 MB of free data allotment is only good for the first year after the purchase of the modem or hotspot.

This seems kind of handy to own, just in case you need to supplement your internet if it goes out, though it seems like Sprint's Virgin service is cheaper if you used it a lot (and right now they actually cover most people unlike this).